Jindal and the Balanced Budget Amendment

Dave Weigel reacts to Bobby Jindal’s proposal for what the GOP should demand in budget negotiations (via Rod):

These are not new ideas. They’re dumbed-down ideas. The first three proposals were all part of Cut, Cap, and Balance, the first and most important conservative-led Republican ransom note on the debt limit. These proposals passed in the House and died in the Senate. No one who paid attention to that manufactured crisis, and how it ended, could look at the incoming, more-Democratic Congress and say “oh, let’s see what these guys think of Cut, Cap, and Balance!” Democrats opposed spending caps and the BBA-with-supermajority-for-tax-hikes because they see no way to enforce that stuff without cutting entitlements. Republicans are wavering on the sequester, which gets us closer to that spending goal, because they realize you need some flexibility on spending in an economic doldrum. Jindal’s just tossing that to the wind, in a profoundly clueless way.

Jindal’s insistence on a balanced budget amendment makes the least sense of his first three proposals. He mentions that states have balanced budget laws, but he neglects to mention that it has been the cuts in state and local spending that have been a major drag on the recovery. He ignores that the reduction in public employment at the state and local level that these cuts required is one of the things that drove the unemployment rate so high. In the same op-ed, he insists that all actions taken by Washington should be viewed in terms of whether they help grow the economy, but then insists on pushing for a balanced budget amendment that would require the federal government to respond to economic contraction in the same way that the states have had to do for the last four years.

Not only is a balanced budget amendment not something wort fighting for right now, but it is an idea that doesn’t even meet Jindal’s own standard for judging the actions of the federal government. The amendment is a relic of debates of the 1990s. I doubt very much that it is “an idea that is supported by virtually every American who does not live in the 202 area code.” On the contrary, I suspect it is an idea that very few people outside Washington ever think about or consider. Jindal’s op-ed is unfortunately a classic example of ignoring trade-offs between different policy choices and refusing to set priorities among them.

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7 Responses to Jindal and the Balanced Budget Amendment

Also consider the absurdity of Jindal’s claim that “All actions taken by Washington should be seen through this simple prism – will this help grow our economy?” That’s it? So we shouldn’t even consider whether a policy is Constitutional or appropriate to our unwritten traditions? Whether it is consistent with basic morality? Whether it is likely to weaken our long-term security interests? Whether policies that contribute to GDP growth will also promote economic inequality?

There’s a lot that’s wrong with the Republican party. But the obsession with simple answers and “clear principles” is one of the biggest.

“All he can do is regurgitate talking points that he doesn’t really seem to understand.”

Truer words have not been spoken.

I know I have mentioned this before, but all you need to know about Jindal was summaries in his condescending and absurdly stupid ” Congress even pays $140 million for something called volcano monitoring” State of the Union Reply. A month before a volcano erupted in Alaska.

In addition to the actual economic impact of a BBA, and the lunacy of the Jindal prism – as Mr. Goldman points out – the ill-understood talking point ignores two important facts. First, pretty much every state that does hvae a BBA resorts to undemocratic off-budget debt financing of capital expenditure that amount to gross accounting trickery. This is because of the second fact, that as each family knows – even setting aside the idiotic comparion of the finances of an Iraq-occupying superpower with that of a family – sometimes, debt is essential to the wellbeing of the unit. I guess Jindal has never heard of a, well, mortgage, or a, er, credit card.

Yes, but look on the bright side. If you force government to respond to an economic downturn in the way that causes maximum damage, it will make people hate their government more and convince them that all government action is bad.

or it can backfire and cause them to reject the ‘handlers’ instead. Less “Government sucks” and more “your edriving of government sucks. Let me drive.”

Besides, last thing we need is people thinking of sabotaging the section they don’t like in order to prove their point. Libertarian laws that force hte government to damage it’s people while Socialist (real ones that is) slipping in laws that force banks to stop lending to individuals and businesses “to protect the nation from Private Debt” or just remove FDIC.

(written less at you directly and more because there ARE folks who want to do damage to the country just to gain some points.)

“Yes, but look on the bright side. If you force government to respond to an economic downturn in the way that causes maximum damage, it will make people hate their government more and convince them that all government action is bad.”

And given the history of the Great Depression, it’s a 50-50 tossup between a liberal reform movement (FDR) and outright fascism 🙂

By refusing the join the EU’s stability and growth pact, David Cameron (the tory British PM) rejected its effective balanced budget requirements. Even right-wingers know, when push comes to shove, that enshrining pro-cyclical economic policy into a constitution is stupid.